with the floor of the main building, extend on either side of it, and are returned to the southwest, making the three sides of a parallelogram. They are flat and form a terraced walk. The northwest angle seems to have been a favorite spot of Mr. Jefferson. It is completely shaded by trees and garden chairs are permanently fixed there. The view from it is magnificent. You look across the valley between the southwest mountain and the Blue Ridge, until the high and rolling summits of the latter range from a bold horizon, extending from the south around into the north. Forests and cultivation are here mingled in goodly proportion. The University of Virginia has nestled upon the little eminence and embowering creeks, and nearer the Valley of Charlottesville, which is a pleasant resting place for the eye among the wide fields which surround it. Here and there the Ravenna glitters in the landscape, and the roar of the stream over the dam below rises up gently with a soothing influence. Vast masses of clouds, the remnants of the afternoon gust, are lying about the sun, and take those hues which pen cannot describe nor pencil imitate, and which few but us Americans have seen. Long shadows are stretching themselves further and further towards Monticello, until the disappearance of the sun behind the clouds throws one broad veil over the entire landscape, and the distant mountains take the hue of deeper purple. Then bursting forth again the sun, within a palm's width of the edge of that round, isolated hill, casts its level rays eastward, and the points of all the intermediate eminences glitter like diamonds with momentary lustre another moment, when the broad flood of mellow light westward along indicates that the sun has been there, and almost compensates by its beauty for the sun's departure. Would that you could see Monticello to advantage as I did, and watch the sun |